Bibek Debroy: Economist, writer, mentor, polymath - The Economic ...

Synopsis

Bibek Debroy, a renowned economist and scholar with expertise ranging from economics to Sanskrit literature, has passed away. As a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, his intellectual presence and guidance will be deeply missed by colleagues, friends, and the author, Sanjeev Sanyal, who reflects on their invaluable interactions.

Agencies

On the morning of November 1, I lost a friend, mentor, guide and colleague: Bibek Debroy. He was a man whose formidable scholarship ranged from economics and Sanskrit literature to the history of Indian-made fountain pens. He wrote and lectured on these diverse subjects, and many readers will have been enriched by them over the years. He will be truly missed by his colleagues at Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), his many friends and fans across the world, and by his family.

For me, the loss is very personal. Almost every morning, after the first official meeting of the day, sometime between 11 and 11.15 am, I would walk over to Bibek-da's office down the corridor. Occasionally, he would come to my room. We would then order a cup of coffee each; his spartan black, mine strong and sugary. The conversation over the next 20-odd minutes would traverse the most eclectic combination of topics-latest developments in international politics, economic reforms, macro-stability, outdated laws and processes, ancient history, the dating of Vedic texts, upcoming EAC-PM reports, and the office gossip of the finance ministry of the 1990s.

It was quite incredible how he remembered certain things in vivid detail. For instance, if I was working on a certain process reform, he would remember the exact sub-section of an old regulation that I needed to study. At other times, he would mention the exact date of some meeting that took place in the Planning Commission 30 years ago or ask me look up an obscure state government report published in the 1980s. All this, even as he made me test out his latest fountain pen acquisition or redo the wording of some article we were writing.

These coffee breaks usually came to an abrupt end as one of our team members would come in to inform us that the guests for the next meeting had already arrived. Of course, we met frequently in formal meetings and social events, but it will be the casual 20-minute coffee meetings that I will miss most. Bibek-da and I had many things in common: both proud Bengalis from Partition refugee families; a strong desire to see India as a global economic power; a distaste for inefficiencies caused by red tape and outdated laws; both macroeconomic conservatives; a passion for Indian history and the intricacies of different Hindu philosophies. We travelled together to see old temples and archaeological sites (our visit to the Harappan site of Kalibangan in 2022 resulted in an episode on his Sansad TV show about the Saraswati river). The year 2024 was not kind to Bibek-da. He had to be repeatedly admitted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

But even this did not deter his spirit. Rigged up to various tubes and monitors in the Intensive Care Unit, he continued to send me comments on my articles, papers and interviews through WhatsApp. Indeed, in September, he even managed to participate online from the hospital bed in interviews conducted to hire young professionals into the EAC-PM team.

In the last few weeks, some of us were aware of the precarious condition of his health. But we hoped for the best as he restarted publishing his limericks, sent instructions-often with a witty line-to his economic research team, and even spoke of the next Purana that he would like to translate.

Bibek Debroy will be remembered as an economist who greatly influenced policy thinking at a critical juncture of India's history, as arguably the greatest ever translator of ancient Sanskrit texts, and a mentor to my generation of policymakers. Bibek-da, you will be missed.

(Sanjeev Sanyal is member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister)

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